Alright, friends, hold onto your pumpkin spice. It may be the first of September, but Autumn is showing no signs of making an appearance where I live. I know that the stores are filled with cozy sweaters and colorful leaf decor, but why do we always have to rush things?

I've always hated how we can't even finish one holiday or season without the world trying to sell us stuff related to the next one.

I want to slow down and enjoy it all, soak it in, and be present. This morning, for example, there is a summer thunderstorm. I cracked open my window to listen to the symphony of thunder, rain falling, and my neighbor's wind chimes. I love fall as much as the next gal, but my goodness, stop wishing our time on this planet away!

Things in the world look pretty shaky right now and, in some places, downright terrifying. We earthlings seem to be stuck in a downward spiral, so we need to learn now how to find solace and joy in the present.

This may seem weird, but I'm excited to announce that I have taken language lessons on Duolingo every single day for a year. I didn't even miss any days when I had surgeries. I was careful to do at least one quick review right before.

I've been learning languages for longer than a year, though. I began studying Greek intensively before and during my time in that beautiful country. While I'm far from fluent, I can understand a lot, read signs, and communicate simple things with ease.

When I moved on to Bulgaria, I was then faced with another alphabet that was completely unreadable to me. So, I tapped into the closest thing to Bulgarian on my app, Russian. It shares the Cyrillic alphabet and a huge amount of the same vocabulary. For some reason, this language came fairly easily to me. After leaving Bulgaria, I continued my lessons, and now, I've tested at a low-intermediate level in this language. Being able to read other alphabets may not be particularly useful here in the USA, but it's a great brain exercise, as is learning languages. If there are languages that interest you, I strongly recommend the DuoLingo App. You can do the free version or the paid version, depending on your dedication to learning this.

Maybe one day, these languages will come in handy again. I know they're both rather obscure here in America, and I may have been better served by expanding my grasp on Spanish, but something about knowing these mysterious alphabets seems delicious and exciting. I know - it doesn't take a lot to mean excitement for me these days.

Every day you learn something is a good day. No matter what your interests are, maybe focus some time on learning more and going deeper. It's a much better way to pass the time than watching television, and the more we know, the better we become.

Have a great Sunday and a wonderful week ahead.

PS: If you've grabbed my book, The Widow in the Woods, a five-star review on Amazon would help me out immensely! Thank you in advance!

Having something to eat isn't guaranteed.

We're facing threats to our food supply from many different angles: supply chain breakdowns, drought, food facilities being ravaged by fires, skyrocketing inflation, and outright shortages. No longer can we live in the comfort of unthreatened abundance. We're learning exactly how delicate the system really is.

Prepping and putting back supplies is incredibly important but what we're seeing now goes beyond that. You have to be able to produce and acquire more food. You have to be able to put back your harvests to eat during the winter. You have to be able to prepare items that once were as convenient as popping open a can or little plastic container.

You need a paperback copy of How to Feed Your Family No Matter What, our Organic Prepper anthology with ALL of our content about food. You'll get more than 500 pages of content that are all about food when you can't just go to the store and buy whatever you want.